Saturday, January 16, 2016

The creepiest ad

The advertisements featured in the 2004 mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, an alternate history in which the Confederacy has won the US Civil War, are among the movie’s most striking elements:

They hit home through the familiarity of their form and their resemblance to real commercials today (as the first video above notes, some are based on real twentieth-century brands; the reference of the last should be obvious).

For those who know the reality of dairy and meat production, the new Freschetta Pizza ad evokes a somewhat similar dystopian sensation. Meet Tilly Mae:

Commercials like this seem to be reviving tropes - like the plantation “family” and the “happy darky” - developed in the eras of slavery and Jim Crow. This seems particularly to be the case, for some reason, when they feature cows and chickens.